Adventures in Argentina

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A few hours ago I just got back from Mendoza Argentina. I still feel like I'm on Cloud 9. This weekend was so awesome!...in spite of some comical struggles. I don't know what was going on but I kept running into snags, including almost getting kicked out of the country. Yes, I almost got kicked out of Argentina only 5 minutes after entering! Leave it up to me to be able to pull something like that off. Haha! On Thursday, I went to the bus station with Stacey and Angela to buy our tickets. We bought Kelsey's for her since she had class. The tickets were a really good deal considering it was for an 8 hour trip that included snacks. Stacey, who paid first, paid the equivalent of $25 USD. Then when me and Angela paid literally right after her, the price suddenly went up to $28. We don't know how the price could have gone up in the span of 1 minute! Was it extreme inflation?? It was hilarious.

That night, I went home to pack my life. It appears that I am utterly incapable of packing light. After eating with the host family for what felt like hours and getting distracted by Youtube videos and Facebook, the next thing I knew it was 6 in the morning and I had not packed a thing! To top things off, I had to leave the house by 8 A.M. to get to the terminal by 8:30 to leave for Mendoza with my friends exactly at 9! And I hadn't even showered and washed my hair! I decided I'd better not go to bed. I threw myself in the shower, washed my hair, blow dried it, got dressed, chunked my stuff in my maleta, tossed some cereal down my throat, and rushed out the door at 8:35. I was freaking out! I hailed a colectivo at 8:37 and he told me it would take 15 minutes to arrive in the Plaza de Vina where I would then have to walk 4 blocks (more like run) to get to the bus terminal. I felt so bad and I was begging God that I wouldn't miss the bus even though I knew that being late was totally my fault. I got the the Plaza de Vina at 8:52. I snatched my suitcase out the colectivo trunk and began to haul pell-mell for the terminal. My legs cramped, my friends blew up my phone and I sweated bullets as I looked at my cell and noticed it was 8:55 and I still had a block to go! I busted through the terminal doors, ran to show my passport at the bus office and to my disappointment the clerk told me she thought the bus was taking off as we spoke! She looked at me and told me to run! I ran. When I got there the bus was still there!..barely. I handed my suitcase to the luggage dude and the second I got on, the driver took off. My friends looked at me with relief and I sat there in shock thanking God that I had actually made it! :p

It gets more eventful. For the first 3 hours me and Stacey gabbed incessantly. Most other people were passing out but we continued to talk non-stop. At one point we were having quite the scandalous conversation and we both said "Wow, thank goodness no one speaks English!" Ha! We passed through the cordillera (Andes mountainside) and it was beautiful! Snow-capped mountains, magnificent rock structures, a brook, valleys, rolling hills...I had never seen anything like it. I sat back, letting my lips cool from talking Stacey's ear off, and let the majestic scene playing before my eyes both soothe my soul and lull me to sleep. I hadn't slept, remember?

When I woke up we were in Argentina! I was so excited because I'd always wanted to go there. Some people next to us introduced themselves and they were European--and spoke English. Me and Stacey looked at each other and realized that our conversation from earlier had probably been overheard. Awkward! Haha! We had to get off the bus and go present our passports to aduanas (that's customs in English) before continuing on to Mendoza. My friends went before me in line and didn't have any problems. When it was MY turn the guy asked me where my Chilean student ID was. Uh...I don't have a student ID card and didn't even know we were supposed to have one!! This was not good. I thought having the student visa paper was enough but he told me that I had not completed the process and that I did not technically have my student visa. I looked at my friends to see if they had this phantom card and they all held theirs up. It was just me! Somehow I had slipped through the cracks and didn't get the memo. My study abroad program handles all of that but no one ever told me about the student card. Bad time to find out. The attendant then proceeded to tell me that I have been illegal in Chile for the past month! The tourist visa expired in 90 days and since the student visa process had not been completed he didn't want to let me into Argentina! I was about to cry and none of us had enough money on our pre-paid Chilean cell phones to call Lizette. That's when a miracle happened. One of the drivers of the bus really took charge. He explained to me what was happening and then convinced the aduanas clerk to let me stay in Argentina. He had mercy on me and spoke up for me. I had to promise to fix the visa immediately when I got back to Chile. On that promise and seeing my pitiful and confused foreign exchange student face, the clerk had mercy on me and let me stay in the country. I thanked the bus driver and ran to join my friends. Thank God! I would have been sick if I had to return.

We drove about 3 more hours through the mountains and finally reached Mendoza! I was stoked. As we were standing in the terminal deciding which hostel to choose some man offered us a free taxi. Instantly my friends got a bad feeling. We politely told him no thank you but he would not get lost! He followed us around the terminal and when we stepped outside trying to escape, he followed us there too. We didn't know what his deal was but we knew we were NOT getting in his "free taxi". Homeboy was super sketchy. Long story short, we ended up choosing a hostel four blocks away that included a free glass of wine every night, Wi-Fi, and breakfast. It was my first time staying in a hostel and it was really nice. We got a private room for the four of us for only $13 USD each a night. We put our stuff in the room, wandered around, and then chowed down on pizza because we had heard that Argentinian pizza is the best. It was really good and stinkin' cheap. We got a large pizza and only paid $2.50 each. The area was nice. There were coffee shops, artisan chocolate shops, and ample clothes stores, bookstores, and restaurants. Later that night the hostel offered a free pub crawl. Even though I was tired, I didn't want to miss out on something free! Three tour guides came to get us at 11 p.m. They were cool and they took us too an Irish pub and then some other bar/discoteca. It's called a boliche in Argentina. Argentinians must be very inclusive people because the free pub crawl also included free shots. I had a couple but I wasn't trying to live la vida loca so that had to stop. Haha! I had already had my free glass of wine at the hostel and I'm super light weight. My friends didn't drink at all so the Argentinians probably thought we were weird for going on the pub crawl. Thank goodness some Brazilians from the hostel joined us and drank our share of drinks so the tour guides would stop offering them to us!

I know Chilean men are professional cat-callers so I wondered if it'd be the same in Argentina. We had been there for 6 hours so far and we were in the clear. No unwarranted attention. Soon after, I noticed some guys at another table staring at me. If I had any doubt whether or not they were actually looking at me, it ended when one guy had the nerve to point. Haha...smooth. It was whatever. I'm sure I was looking super attractive as I was slowly falling asleep at the table. My lack of sleep was catching up to me at an astounding speed. My friends were tired too so we bounced. But on the way out, one of the guys from the starring table came up to me and told me it was his friend's birthday and asked me for a kiss. I was too tired to display my full indignation so decided a simple "I don't know him" had to suffice. His friend was hot, I'm not gonna lie, but asking a stranger for a kiss is too trashy to ignore! We caught a taxi back to the hostel and happily crashed in our beds.

On Saturday, we caught a bus to outside of Mendoza to go on a biking tour of some wineries. The bus only cost us each 80 cents round trip for a 40 minute ride each way. Amazing. Why can't U.S. public transportation be this amazing?? Anyway, we rented the bikes for 7 bucks and could have them as long as we wanted. The people gave us a map of the wineries and we set off. First we stopped at this artisan liquor and chocolate place. It was delicious and we only paid $4 for a little basket of artisan chocolate, liquor shots in flavors like dulce de leche, chocolate, and Irish cream, a basket of bread, olive paste, salsa, and marmalade. It was out of control. The sun was shining, the weather was crisp and fresh, and we were getting treated like queens. It was astonishing. After that we biked kind of far to this winery. That's when we all found out that Argentinian men like to catcall just as much as Chileans. The men honked their horns, stuck their heads out of windows, and called out "Voz eres muy linda", "Oh son buenas las cuarto" and I got my own personal shout outs from across a field. "¡Ey voz! ¡Voz la morena!". One young boy called out "I love you" as we passed, probably the only English words he knew, and some man said he wanted to do something to all four of us. We didn't catch the verb. Anyway, once at the winery, for only $5 USD, I got a tour of the winery, 3 glasses of wine, and an actual wine tasting lesson! It was insane! Only me and Angela drank wine but we all got to enjoy the experience while sitting on an elegant balcony overlooking a grand vineyard with the picturesque Andes Mountains in the background. It was unreal! After that, we biked to the free Museum of Wine. There wasn't much to see and we weren't in the mood to read so we bounced. That's when we went to the olive garden. For $4 dollars we got a tour, 2 baskets of bread, olive oil tasting, 7 different olive pastes to taste, multiple marmalades, 4 kinds of chocolate and liquor shots in special flavors. Truth be told it was more like stuffing face than tasting and the workers looked at us humorously. Later that night at the hostel, they offered a cooking class to learn how to make empanadas. We had to take advantage of that! We met some guy from the States named TJ during the class and we ended up chatting with him the rest of the night. He was traveling alone and had just come from Chile as well.

Sunday morning we got an early start. We managed to whip ourselves out of bed, scarf breakfast, and be out of the hostel by 10:30. There's a huge park in Mendoza, half the size of the entire city, which includes a zoo and a lake. Once the taxi driver dropped us off at the park entrance, we ended up walking an hour just to get to the ENTRANCE of the zoo! I was pooped before we even got there! At the zoo, there was a notable difference from what I'm used to. Me, Angela, Stacey, and Kelsey were strolling along when we noticed a monkey OUTSIDE OF THE CAGE!!! I was scared out of my wits and about to turn around to inform an official when I noticed more outside of their cages and the Argentinians' calm reaction to them. A grandma held her granddaughter's hand as she passed a foot away from an uncaged monkey. I was in shock and thought "Is this how they do it in Argentina?" and prayed no other animal was out. For such a huge zoo, many of the animal pens were cramped, overcrowded, and minimally decorated. Many of the bigger animals such as the lions, tigers, and bears (oh my! Haha), were pacing about looking stressed. After leaving there, we swung by the lake in a taxi, too tired to walk, and then left the park and went to a fancy restaurant to try the popular Argentinian asado meat. For a pesto lasagna, steak, sausage and water, I paid $19 including tip. Not bad at all and the food was good! After that we went to the La Plaza de Independencia and checked out some artesanias then walked around in search of this restaurant that had tango shows at night. What we discovered is that the tango place had closed down like 2 years ago. Someone really needs to take down that website! We also discovered that many places are closed on Sunday afternoon. The streets looked like a ghost town. Luckily we ran into a cafe y helado (coffee and ice-cream) shop that was open. Later that night we went out again and were surprised to see that many places had opened up. Night had fallen and it was as if the city got a second wind. People were out and the city came to life. Back in the Plaza de Independencia, men played drums, children ate cotton candy, and the atmosphere was inviting. We ran into TJ and all of us went out for ice-cream, cake, and coffee--again! Haha! Later that night me, Angela, and Stacey stumbled upon a tango place none the less. Tango originated in Argentina and it was fascinating to see people of all ages dancing this saucy dance. Angela, Stacey, and I sat in the candle light and enjoyed watching the couples maneuver so skillfully.

This morning, we packed and hopped on a bus back to Vina del Mar Chile. It was weird going back to Chile. It was like going home from vacation but to a place that wasn't really my home either. I had a wonderful weekend and I'm still on cloud 9. I feel so fortunate to have been able to go, do everything I always dreamed of doing, and do it on a dime. I spent little of nothing yet lived like royalty. On the way back, they asked me about my student visa again but I had less trouble. I emailed Lizette from the hostel and ISA is going to fix that ASAP. I'm in such a good program. As we traveled through the Andes once more, at the risk of sounding cheesy, I must say that I felt like I was getting my soul massaged by God. It was so relaxing lying in my semi cama seat and watching the mountains roll by, every one distinct. I breathed in deeply and knew that this was one of the most peaceful and pleasurable times of my life. God has made this world so beautiful and I feel privileged to have been allowed to see another piece of it.

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Photos

Leaving Chile
Sick views of the Andes Mountains on the way to Mendoza.

Majestic views!
Up in the Andes.

Private hostel room.
only $13 USD a night per person!

Irish pub...in Argentina.
Notice the creepy leprechaun in the background? Haha

On the hostel!
:D Pub crawl

Delicious
Tasted kind of like a milk shake.

Empanada cooking class!
Also free. :)

Monkeys like Coca Cola?
This would be a great advertisement. Now someone please put him back in his cage!!